Харлан Кобен - Win

I try to sound kind as I say, “It’s okay,” so as to encourage her to keep talking.

“We were happy, Ry and me. I mean, sort of. Like I said, I knew what I was getting in for. It wasn’t going to be forever, but I’m not big on forever. My relationships with men are like a wild buckaroo ride at a rodeo — it’s exciting and crazy and I know it’s going to be me who gets thrown off in the end and breaks a rib when I smack the ground.”

I like her.

Kathleen turns now and gives me a well-crafted, oft-used side smile that lands.

“That ride lasted longer than I would have thought.”

“How long?”

“As a couple? On and off for years. As a friend? Well, right up until today.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I bet the Staunch family found him.”

“Nero Staunch?”

“The family always wanted revenge, you know. One of the people who died that night was a niece or something. Ry always figured they got to the others.”

“The Staunches?”

“Yeah.”

“Ry thought that the Staunches killed the other Jane Street Six members?”

“Something like that, yeah. The Staunch girl who got killed? I think her brother runs the family business now.” She shrugs. “Ry got nuttier and more paranoid as time passed. He was erratic at best. Sometimes, for no reason, he’d start thinking the cops or Staunch was closing in on him. Maybe because he heard a funny noise or someone gave him a weird look. Maybe because Mercury was in retrograde. Who knew? So Ry would run off for a while. Sometimes he’d be gone for months. Then he’d just show up one day and want to live with me again. He’d do that — come back and stay with me — until he got the place in the Beresford.”

“When was that?”

“What year? Oh, let me think. Mid-nineties maybe.”

Hmm. That would be around when the paintings were stolen.

“You set up a weekly meet?” I ask.

“Yeah. Whatever was wrong with Ry, it was getting worse. You take all his issues, which are really an illness, you know, like cancer or heart diseases. Incurable maybe, I don’t know. But you take all that and you take his paranoia and then you add in the fact that he really did have people after him — the FBI, the Staunches, whatever. Then pile on the guilt from that horrible night and, kaboom, like with the Molotov cocktails. So by the time Ry moved into that tower, he couldn’t handle life anymore. He shut out the world.”

“Except you.”

“Except me.” The R-rated smile again. “But I’m pretty special.”

“I’m sure you are.”

Are we flirting?

I move on: “When you two met for your weekly rendezvous in the park, what did you do?”

“Talked mostly.”

“About?”

“Anything. He didn’t make much sense in recent years.”

“But you still met?”

“Sure.”

“And you talked?”

“I also gave him the occasional hand job.”

“Nice of you.”

“He wanted more.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Right? And I’d try. For old times’ sake. Like I said, he used to be so damn beautiful, like you, but, I don’t know, by 2000, maybe 2001, he lost his physical appeal. To me at least.” Kathleen arched an eyebrow. “Still, a hand job isn’t nothing.”

“Truer words,” I agree.

Kathleen stares me down a bit. I like that. I am, I confess, tempted. She may be on the older side, but she’s got that innate sexual allure you can’t teach — and I did lose out earlier tonight. Kathleen saunters now toward the crystal decanter and gestures whether it would be okay to pour herself another. I do the honors.

“To Ry,” she says.

“To Ry.”

We clink glasses.

“He was also afraid people would steal his stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“I don’t know. Whatever junk he had in his apartment.”

“Did he ever tell you about his junk?”

“Huh?”

“As in, what he had in his apartment.”

“No.”

“Did you read about the recovered stolen Vermeer?”

Her eyes are emeralds with yellow specks. She looks at me over the amber liquor in her glass. “Are you saying...?”

“In his bedroom.”

“Holy shit.” She shakes her head. “That explains a lot.”

“Like?”

“Like how he got the money for the apartment. There were other paintings stolen, right?”

“Yes.”

“From someplace in Philadelphia?”

“Right nearby.”

“Ry visited Philly a lot. When he’d run away. Had friends there, I guess, a girlfriend maybe. So yeah, Ry could have done it, sure. Maybe he fenced a painting or two, and that’s how he got all that money.”

It made sense.

“Did you notice any changes in him recently?” I ask.

“Not really, no.” Then thinking more about it, she says, “But, well, come to think of it, yeah, but I don’t think it has anything to do with this.”

“Try me.”

“His bank got robbed. Or at least that’s what Ry told me. He was freaking out about it. I told him not to worry. Banks have to make you whole if they got robbed, I said. That’s true, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“But he wouldn’t calm down.”

I consider this. “Was he imagining it or—?”

“No, no, it was in the Post . Bank of Manhattan on Seventy-Fourth. He even told me — last time I saw him, come to think of it — that the bank had left a message.”

“On his phone?”

“Don’t know, come to think of it.”

“Did he own a phone?”

“Just a burner I bought for him at Duane Reade. It lets you keep the same number for years. I don’t know the details.”

No phone, I knew, had been found at the murder scene. Interesting.

“He never kept it on,” she continues. “He was afraid someone could track him. He’d, like, check for messages once or twice a week.”

“And the bank left him a message?”

“I guess. Or at the front desk. Whatever. They wanted him to come down to the branch or something.”

“Did he?”

“I don’t know.”

I consider this. “Ry Strauss left the Beresford during the day on Friday. Less than an hour later, he came back with someone.”

“Back to his apartment? With a guest?”

“A small bald man. They came through the basement.”

“It had to be with the killer.” She shakes her head. “Poor Ry. I’m going to miss him.”

Kathleen throws back the rest of the drink and moves closer to me. Very close. I don’t back up. Her hand rests on my chest. Her blouse is too tight. She looks up at me with the emerald eyes. Then her hand slides slowly down my body, and she cups my balls.

“I don’t think I want to be alone tonight,” she whispers, giving me just a perfect little squeeze.

And so she stays.

I sleep, though “sleep” may be the wrong word choice on this particular night, in an antique, baroque, four-poster canopy bed made of carved mahogany with an embroidered lace topper. The bed is a bit much, I confess, dominating the room in every way, the four posts nearly scraping the ceiling, but it still sets the mood.

At sunrise, Kathleen kisses my cheek and whispers, “Find the bastard who killed him.”

I have no desire to avenge Ry Strauss, especially since it appears likely that he did one or more of the following (in time sequence): Stole my family’s art, murdered my uncle, abducted and assaulted my cousin.

Which begs the question: What exactly am I after here?

I rise and shower. The copter awaits. When it touches down in Lockwood, my father is waiting for me. He is decked out in a blue blazer, khaki trousers, tasseled loafers, and a red ascot. He wears this outfit nearly every day with very few variations. His thinning hair is slicked back against the skull. He stands with his hands behind his back, shoulders pulled up. I see me in thirty years’ time, and I don’t really like that.